Five Bloodhounds
by hiddenmoments
Summary: It could have been years later and they would still be hunting. Their pack was torn asunder and these five bloodhounds will never give up the hunt - not even if it lasts forever. Billy, Colby, David, Liz, Nikki. Five parts spanning from One Mistake all the way to Seventy Seven Seconds.
1. Chapter 1

**Not mine… still.**

**Part I: Billy**

_i._

Fugitive Recovery is a blend of skill, instinct, tenacity and pure guts. It takes a completely different type of agent to make it in that world and Billy Cooper knows that there isn't any other job for him.

A permanent partner is rare because so few agents stay in the field and since Don Eppes, Billy won't even entertain the possibility of another. Fugitive Recovery is in his blood, the deepest part of his soul, and will be until the day he dies, but he will always hunt mostly alone.

Somehow, when he receives the call from an agent in Los Angeles in a bitter November after thirteen years of only temporary partners, he found that his only real partner was still there, in his blood and soul. It doesn't take him even an instant to drop the case file in his left hand and with it, everything except the urge to get to where he is needed.

_ii._

Billy goes into the room after Don's team leaves and the empty room overwhelms every part of him.

The blood, the vomit, the shackle.

The solid stone, the uniform darkness, the biting cold.

The relentless thump of his heart, molten fury banishing the chill, venomous hiss of his sudden breath.

Then, there is nothing but his blood, (_my partner_) his soul, his rage.

_iii._

He wonders if the sparks dancing across his skin show in his eyes. He hopes they do because the quicker this scumbag is unsettled the quicker they will be able to bring Don and Ian home.

It doesn't escape his notice how quickly he becomes one of the team. How quickly the 'agent' title is dropped before the Betancourt, Granger, Sinclair, Warner. How quickly he begins to see the shades of Don in them.

What is even more frightening is how quickly he begins to care.

At first, he would have admitted to Ian being a secondary concern. He knows the other man, respects his skills, but LA is like a vacuum without Don and it makes it almost impossible to concentrate on anything aside from filling that glaring hole.

By day twenty, it is _Don and Ian_ rather than _Don, and Ian_.

A growl rumbles low in his throat when he thinks of the man with nerve enough to take them both. Going head to head with every law enforcement agency in the United States of America is one thing.

Going head to head with five FBI agents every single bit as much a bloodhound as the ones missing from their pack is another entirely.

_iv._

There aren't words for the feeling in his stomach as consciousness returns and he feels the scrap of denim, snug around his fingers, while recollection settles around him like quicksand.

Reality has never hurt quite so badly but that is a pain for another time. Fighting his way to his knees, he sees Granger nearby. The younger man is only half conscious, wheezing for breath. His hands are grasping vainly at empty air and Billy thinks that if he had enough breath in his own lungs, he might scream.

He doesn't, though, and he steadies himself before reaching for Granger. The denim is still hooked around his fingers and he curls them against it because he has the scent now and there is no way he is going to let that road go untravelled.

Every ache, chill, cramp and pain in his body melts beneath the rush of adrenaline as their goal becomes suddenly, overwhelmingly tangible.

(_these bloodhounds are about to become hellhounds so prepare yourselves for flames_)

_v_.

The accident is reported to 911 at twenty one past midnight, day thirty eight, Dispatch says when they pass it on from a truck driver on his way home who saw the damage to the undergrowth and followed it to the car. Emergency services respond and find it empty at twelve thirty four. When they run the plate, Lt. Gary Walker calls Billy and the hounds go on the hunt.

They will not rest until their pack is whole again.

* * *

_**These probably won't be particularly long, just some thoughts and missing scenes that I thought appropriate for the storyline. It was awesome to hear from a couple new reviewers on the last couple chapters of **__Four Escapes__**, and you regulars know just how important you are to this story. I hope everyone is still enjoying this. We're 18,000 words in, guys. This is becoming a monster!**_


	2. Chapter 2

**Part II: Colby**

_i._

When military intelligence cut his tour short and pulled him from Afghanistan, Colby Granger didn't know whether it was a good thing or not. Undercover was risky at the best of times but the ten year old inside him thought that working for the Bureau was the most exciting thing ever.

He never anticipated that the people he was reporting on would become his family and sitting at his desk with his fingers against the glass of his Army unit photo, he realises that he's forgotten more about those men than he remembers.

The memories have been replaced by his team, replaced by silly (_some not so silly_) things about the patchwork family he's found in LA. He knows exactly how many times David will relock his car door every time they get an old car without central locking (_three_) and he knows that the other man will deny snoring until he's blue in the face. He has several recordings on his cell as proof to the contrary.

He knows that any food in the vicinity is in serious danger the second Charlie begins one of his explanations and he knows that Amita still feels like a child in a candy store every time she works with them despite the danger and the fear. He knows that on a clear night, they won't get anything useful out of Larry because he'll be entranced by the stars.

In the mornings (_and afternoons and nights_) he knows that Liz takes her coffee weak and milky with two sugars but he always puts four and gets narrowed eyes and a quirked, half smile in return. He knows that Nikki is addicted to energy drinks and worries that she'll never fill the shoes she was brought in for but he also knows that she's the one who swapped them out for another pair two sizes too big.

It might have been two years ago but he would still bet his life that Megan couldn't make meringues for love nor money and that she would be on a first name basis with the closest deli that sold them. He knows that Ian knows about his starry-eyed awe the first time they worked together and he knows that the other man keeps coming back to their team because it's the closest thing he has to a family as well.

He knows that he knows lots of little things about Don but as his fingers move from the glass of the first picture to that of the second, falling onto faces he knows better than his own, the only thing he can think of is that, just like Don would if the tables were turned, (_they were once_) he won't stop until their family is whole again.

_ii._

He thinks that if there were room in his body for more feelings, he would have been a little star-struck when he and Liz pick Billy Cooper up from LAX. There isn't room, as it turns out, but his first glimpse of the legendary Fugitive Recovery agent hits him almost as hard as the first time he saw Ian.

It doesn't matter that they've never met and he knows it is the same for Liz because of the way she stiffens beside him for just a moment. It doesn't matter that they'd hardly spent five minutes on the phone or that the only things Colby knows about Billy are what David's said and that he hasn't really aged at all if the picture on Don's desk is anything to go by. It doesn't matter that the only things Billy knows about Colby are what Don's told him and that he's ex-military.

The common link (_Don needs us to work together_) is strong enough that none of that matters because pride doesn't matter when the stakes are this high.

_iii._

He's never before been as furious as he is when he interrogates Tyson Burke.

He finally understands what people mean when they say that their blood boils with rage because he thinks that if someone tried to take his temperature, the thermometer would explode before it even got an accurate reading.

The man looks petrified and Colby thinks that his entire body must be quivering with the effort it takes to keep his hands by his sides rather than around Burke's throat.

Low and even, his voice doesn't betray him until the cuffs rattle against the table and the man insists that he doesn't know a thing. It takes barely a second for his voice to raise in volume and lower in register as one of his fists slams into the table, close enough that it incites a violent recoil.

The chair legs scrape shrilly across the ground as Burke pushes himself away from the table. Sweat beads at his temples and Colby flashes his teeth in a feral growl that is more animal than human.

Eventually, Burke spills and Colby's satisfaction is more animal than human too.

_iv_.

He and Liz huddle together in the garage of the Craftsman for six hours after their closest call. His entire torso aches and her breathing is still raspy underneath the quickly bruising flesh.

The inventor of Kevlar will forever be a god to those in law enforcement.

Alan watches them like a hawk as Charlie scratches desperately at his boards and chalk dust floats slowly like dust motes in the air. Billy raises his coffee slightly and murmurs that they should get some rest before turning his attention to his cell.

When she falls asleep, her head is pillowed on his tellingly damp shoulder and he can smell the smoke and gunpowder on her hair. Nikki and David pour themselves into the other sofa and four more dark eyes rest on his face.

He rests his cheek atop the head against his shoulder and offers them a tired half nod before his eyes drift closed.

_v._

There is nothing human about whatever it is that floods through his body, mind, soul, when his keys land in his hand. There is nothing human about the flash of teeth or pounding of feet as he and Billy begin the hunt.

There is nothing human left by this point - it has been bled from them in sweat, tears, blood and failure.

Now, there is only the beat of the drums of war.

There is only the howl of the bloodhounds.

* * *

_**I think I've turned myself into a monster and considering I've just started an eighteen week intensive certification, this might be a really bad thing. I guess this means I need to sit still long enough to read the instructions for the coffee machine and hopefully not destroy it in the attempt. Wow though, that one got completely out of control. It must be Colby that does that to me. I may double post tomorrow because there is no way David's is going to be that long. I had to start an outtake file of sorts at work today because there is evidently lot more to this than I anticipated. I thought that a lot of the little moments could go by unmentioned but apparently not.**_


	3. Chapter 3

**Part III: David**

_i._

David Sinclair's first posting was in Tel Aviv and he won't ever forget it. He saw things there that he'd never even imagined were possible but nothing has ever hit him as hard as this does.

He closes his eyes but the image of the shackle, the blood, the vomit, the dark, is burned on the back of his eyelids more permanently than anything he ever saw in Tel Aviv.

It stays in the corner of his mind even when he steers Nikki back towards the exit and waits for Colby and Liz. It grows deeper roots when Billy joins them in the SUV with flat, cold eyes and he knows that it is never going away when he can't even look at Alan and Charlie that night.

_ii._

He's glad that Charlie has left the room to work with the techs when he almost drowns in the flood of sudden understanding as he watches Liz's fingers flex and close around a man's wrist while Billy's voice drips with ice as he wonders aloud about just how many ways it was possible to cause pain without leaving marks and Colby begins to list them.

The two trade off ideas blithely and continue even as a pained noise escapes the man and Liz's megawatt smile takes a distinctly frosty turn.

He understands now, what Don felt four years ago.

He understands now, but it doesn't mean he can watch.

He understands though, so he gives his seat to Nikki and puts another pane of bulletproof glass between it and himself.

_iii._

More than ever, he understands when what must be the same rage seizes him and the struggle to contain himself is almost too much to bear.

When he has all that he's going to get, he very calmly rises from his chair and pins the handcuffed man with a stare that he'd once been told could pierce a soul. Neither of them move for what could have been hours but in reality is probably only overly long minutes.

David isn't the first to give in, he never is. When the other eyes slink away to rest on a corner, there is a throbbing vein in a forehead beaded with sweat and David feels slightly calmer.

He leaves the room and calls the AD first.

Then he leaves the bullpen and calls his grandmother because he's torn between understanding and confusion and she has always made the most complicated things seem simple.

An hour later, she hasn't disappointed him (_never will_) and he returns to the bullpen and then the war room and his path might not be clear, but it is there at least.

They've torn the pack apart and all he can do is whatever it takes to bring it back together.

_iv_.

The sun has barely risen the morning he finds Alan by the koi pond on the way back to the garage after a trip to the bathroom. The older man offers him a nod before returning his eyes to the lazily swimming fish.

He doesn't know where it comes from, but words spill from his lips as he tries to articulate the simultaneous hope and fear in the pit of his stomach. Alan's hand over his stops the words dead in their tracks.

He knows, he says. He knows how hard they're trying and how close they've been and how impossibly frustrating each and every moment that passes is because he feels it all too but he doesn't doubt them, not one little bit.

The silence is comfortable after that and David thinks a little sadly, a little wryly, a little hopefully and with more determination than he's ever felt before, that Don and Ian are going to be equal parts proud and amused at how they've all handled this.

He thinks of the tangled dogpile of limbs he's woken as part of more than once in the last few weeks and resolves to get a picture because there is never too much potential blackmail material to have and it may very well make a perfect welcome home present for their two missing pack members.

He doesn't entertain the thought of any other outcome.

_v._

Gary Walker's message is waiting on his desk when he comes back from the bathroom and Billy and Colby are already gone.

When he realises that this is it, that this is everything they've been waiting for, he feels heat flood his body and the same swell of almost feral determination that he's seen in their eyes.

This is it and every cell in his body hums with anticipation as he shouts for the last two members of the pack and joins the hunt.

* * *

_**I don't know how I went with this one. David (and Nikki sometimes) doesn't seem to come across as easily as the others so this took me a while. I feel like he'd struggle a bit more, at least initially, with how down and dirty they have to get here. I'm not sure where his grandmother came from either. I hope it turned out okay and I will try to get either Liz or Nikki's up later today but no promises.**_


	4. Chapter 4

**Part IV: Liz**

_i._

She's never worn her emotions on her sleeves but she is far too lost that evening in November to care.

The eldest of four, limits have never bothered Liz Warner. She considers them guidelines if anything and the FBI might have given her a bit of spit and polish but underneath she's still that same girl with the adrenaline issues and the guts and grit to want to make it in a man's world.

She made it through Quantico and into what might be the best Violent Crimes squad (_and Don's bed even if I didn't get all the way into his heart_) in the country. She made it out of New Jersey and to Los Angeles and she's making it in the FBI like she always said she would.

Her parents call her once a week and she hears the pride in their voices. Her siblings clamour for the phone, nearly twenty one year old Daniel asking intently about the cases that make it to the news and the sixteen year old twins babbling excitedly about learners' permits and when is she coming home next?

She misses their regular call the first week of November. Two days after their world came crumbling down around their ears, David stops his SUV in front of her apartment building and they file behind her while she throws clothes haphazardly into a bag without needing to offer an explanation. They've already been to Nikki's and Colby's.

The blinking light on her answering machine as they leave is familiar enough that she reaches for her cell back in the SUV as the apartment building fades from view through the back window. The glass is cool beneath her cheek and her mother's voice warm in her ear as the highway merges into the streets of Pasadena.

It goes a little way towards soothing the chill that hasn't really left since they stepped into that not-so-abandoned lot but the chill is still there even hours after she hangs up. The chill is still there even when a strong hand is tangled with both of hers, when spiral curls dust her shoulder and a solid chest is pressed flush to her side as none of them make any pretence of sleep.

_ii._

All of a sudden there is a frightened little girl in her arms and she doesn't even have to think before a soothing sound leaves her lips and she has the girl settled on her hip, speaking low and quietly and the words come purely from her mouth because she doesn't have a clue what she's saying.

Colby's shout a moment later makes her head whip around. They've found the tunnels.

The girl's dusty hand is tucked beneath the Kevlar at her shoulder as her tiny body tenses in response to the sudden movement. A greying, gentle looking man in an LAPD uniform reaches out and Liz carefully settles the little girl in his arms, pressing an impulsive kiss to her cheek as she turns and bolts towards the gathering of SWAT agents.

Her mind doesn't stray from Don and Ian, not really. A little piece might have stayed with the girl but at that moment, her pack (_hounds of war_) needs her even more.

_iii._

All she can hear is Don's voice in her ear, the sound of gum between teeth.

_Don't get too upset when the serial killer tells you about disembowelling the librarian._

_Why?_

_He might not tell you about the hooker under the floorboards if he thinks he's already made you angry enough._

For just a moment, his fingers, all searing heat and dexterity, are curled around the top of her arm. The moment passes and then **her **fingers, long and deceptively strong, are around a thick wrist and exerting just enough pressure to push sensitive tendons and ligaments to the edge and painfully grind delicate bones together.

(_you might not be a serial killer but I am definitely already angry enough_)

_iv_.

Billy and Colby remind her more and more of hounds as the days stretch on. They've all become vaguely feral, bright eyes and vicious tempers and a tenacity that is a little frightening but David and Nikki still seem to retain a sense of something that Billy and Colby have lost and she isn't sure that she ever had to begin with.

She thinks about it as Colby is fastening her vest for her, as a spare magazine leaves Billy's hands and lands in Nikki's, three car spaces away, as David speaks low and calm into his cell.

Her conclusion isn't really all that startling when she reaches it because upon reflection, Don was the beginning of her family here, her pack. These four people around her and the two that are missing are the middle and right now, everything they do is a fight for the end to not be any less.

_v._

There is no need for more words when David's call reaches her ears. The instant fire in Nikki's eyes and the sudden flood of adrenaline is enough.

The pack mind kicks in and they move as one.

(_we're_ _coming for you_)

* * *

_**I'm quite pleased with some bits of this but others made me wrinkle my nose a little and I can't figure out why. I'm going to try and polish off Nikki's at work tomorrow and pump out some of **__Sixteen Hours__** as well. Unfortunately the only bit of **__Seventy Seven Days __**that I have done is the seventh part, (typical, I know) not to mention that I have some seminar thing for which I had to pay someone $300 to devour my entire weekend as well so I have no idea how productive I'm going to be able to be in the next four days. If I don't get far enough ahead that I can continue the daily posting, I might begin posting the 100-300 word drabble/oneshot/things that keep happening. There are seven of them already so that gives me a week or so of fallback. Fingers crossed that I don't need it, not to mention you guys deserve more than odd little drabbles!**_


	5. Chapter 5

**Part V: Nikki**  
_  
i._

Nikki Betancourt is law enforcement to the bone. She's grown, in the last thirty months, from an LAPD street cop to an FBI agent finding her feet in a world that is all of a sudden much, much bigger than the four years she spent in Compton.

She doesn't think she'd have hacked it without the luck that landed her smack bang in the Violent Crimes team that she was assigned to. She learns something new from them every day, small lessons as well as big.

Today, she learned that it doesn't matter whether you put them in army fatigues, suits, jeans or tac gear, her team mates aren't any less dangerous than a trapped predator when you threaten them and their own.

The eight cooling bodies, three crumpled figures with bleeding knees and smoking Glock in her hands are proof of that. Some part of her realises, as the adrenaline continues to flood her body, that there aren't even words for what has just happened.

She knows that the comedown from this rush is going to be the worst she's ever had and the fact that she doesn't care, that she rises and grabs the collar of one of the sputtering, whimpering figures, screams in his face, proves that she's (_finally_) one of the pack in a way that both terrifies and exhilarates her.

_ii._

Colby's face is as pale as she's ever seen it when she and David rejoin them in the war room. She's done enough first aid training to know that if he's still upright then there is no way blood loss is the only thing to blame for that pallor.

Liz's voice is relatively calm as she says that Billy Cooper from Fugitive Recovery is making arrangements to fly in as soon as he can and that someone from the Albuquerque office that Don used to run is asking around to compile a list of cases that might be behind what is looking more and more like a setup.

A little less steady in both voice and posture, Colby says that even preliminary lists of people with a grudge against just Don are staggering. A long, successful career that has become fuel for a lot of possible hit lists, and then he tucks his arm across his stomach and closes his eyes for a moment.

Nikki's pretty pleased with how clear her head remains as she tries for a joke to lighten the air because even David's breathing has quickened, saying that at least Ian doesn't leave many people behind to have a grudge so it should help narrow rather than expand the lists.

Liz is the only one who responds to the joke, offering a quick smile, and Nikki feels a sudden rush of gratitude for what has been gradually becoming a bond far deeper than that of a simple team.

_iii._

Optimism carries you only so far, she discovers as days pass and the foundations of said optimism start to buckle under the weight of reality.

She has a sneaking suspicion that there is more caffeine in their bodies than blood by the morning in the bullpen when a young agent in a cubicle nearby says quietly to his partner that a kidnapper without ransom demands is the worst kind.

Her hand spasms involuntarily around the cardboard coffee cup halfway to her mouth. It crumples and the coffee splatters all over her shirt as reality settles heavily on the crushed remains of whatever optimism she'd had left.

Liz's hand closes gently around her elbow and they stop by their desks on the way to the bathroom to collect a spare blouse that had somehow made a home in one of her drawers.

(_Ian really likes this blouse I better not spill coffee on this one too_)

The bathroom is deserted when they get there and she shrugs her jacket off, unbuttoning the soaked shirt. Liz puts it in the basin and then offers her a handful of damp hand wipes which she uses to remove the drops of coffee that had made it through the fabric.

It only takes half a minute for the tears to start and another few seconds before Liz's do too and it's okay to grieve here, just two of the pack because they can be strong for each other for a few minutes without compromising the others.

She hiccups a desperate string of pleading words that she won't ever remember and then sobs are making the other woman's chest heave, shuddering for air. Nikki doesn't even care that her blouse is twisted and only half on because her fingers are shaking as they dig into Liz's back and there are hot tears on the bare skin of her shoulder.

_iv_.

The raids are endless and she doesn't think the flood of adrenaline is ever going to really stop. The fine tremors in her hands are easy enough to dismiss with concentration but at five thirty in the morning the tears burning in her eyes aren't quite so easily ignored. She's grateful that Colby and David are crashed out on the couches in the war room and that Liz is curled up at her desk, dozing with her head on an open notebook.

Across the bullpen, Billy is the only other one awake enough to notice when she boosts herself up to sit in the spot that Ian had cleared for himself on Don's desk five weeks ago. His eyes are bright blue, clear and alert despite the fact that she doesn't think that there will be any repaying the sleep debt they've all amassed in the last five weeks.

He asks her quietly how she's doing as he settles himself in Don's chair carefully and she shrugs a little because they both know that none of them are doing real good but the question is something that they still ask anyway. She asks him how he's doing and white teeth flash as he grins wryly. His teeth disappear back behind his lips as he tells her that he worked a SWAT team in Texas right out of Quantico. Then he worked three months with a veteran in Fugitive Recovery before he got partnered with Don.

She shifts a little, winding her fingers together against the tremors, and says that she used to have trouble imagining her boss working in Fugitive Recovery until she met Ian, who told her stories that made it impossible to see either he or Don in the same light.

They're both silent for a few long moments before she asks him whether he misses Don. Yeah, he says, and something indecipherable flickers in his eyes as he asks whether she misses both of them.

She nods and pretends not to notice how tightly his hand grips the side of Don's chair even as she leans against the glass separator and closes her eyes.

(_please let us bring them home_)

_v_.

Every moment of the past thirty eight days boils down to a single rush of adrenaline as she hears the shout that means the final leg of the race, the all-consuming hunt, has begun.

* * *

_**Well, woah. For a character who I wasn't sure about, I think she definitely came through in this one. Pretty pleased with how the end of the third and the whole fourth section turned out in particular. It was much easier than I expected, so I should be able to post at least once more over the weekend if I use the bit of time I have tomorrow properly and decide how I want to split the next part up.**_

_Ms. GrahamCracker__**, **__notsing__** and **__teddybear3__**, I especially really appreciate your support and understanding about how crazy my life is about to get, consider this chapter a gift to you. Also, hearing about you guys reading the other parts again made me unbelievably happy, it is truly amazing to hear that someone wants to reread them. **__teddybear3__**, as you don't have an account I'll answer your question here: these are the first Numb3rs stories I've written, yes. I've done a few pieces in other fandoms over the years but I think I'm well and truly addicted this time.**_


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